


This Year

by fiveyaaas



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Five admits to not knowing who taylor swift is, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Pining, and i consider that a major floss, bc i feel like at least one person reading these tags wants to punch me in the face, because yes this IS a fic where Five has to get his wisdom teeth out, but i can be a-BRACE-ive with my puns i know, but it’s important, go ahead and give me a temporary crown for dental humor, gonna have to hire a mouth guard, gratuitous amounts of charming dental poster references, is making richard nixon refs a good.... impression for y’all, it’s called galaxy braining, it’s honestly an odd filling knowing y’all even read these, it’s like pulling teeth to get me to stop, my puns are so scandalous news anchors call it COL-gate, the honest tooth is that i’ve just brushed the surface of it, this fic projects all the tooth-related humor i’ve kept locked inside, this is not the confession he makes, vanya is the reason for the tear drops on his guitar :’(, while under the influence of vicodin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27334336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: When Five turns 17 the second time around, the Umbrella Academy is forced to handle their most dangerous mission yet: dealing with Five on Vicodin.[Written for Fiveya Week, Day 1: Memories.]
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 13
Kudos: 123
Collections: fiveya week (round 2)





	This Year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JjdoggieS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JjdoggieS/gifts), [ellaphunt19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellaphunt19/gifts).



> It’s finally Fiveya week!!! Oh my gosh!!! (Okay, I’ll admit when I wrote this author’s note it was actually October 18th, but I know myself well enough to know that I’d be sobbing if I didn’t write author’s notes and chapter summaries and stuff early.) This is going to be one of the much more lighthearted fics I write this week (day 4 is the only day I truly embrace the crack), and I’m really happy to share it with you all. Also, as I wrote this, I realized if Five ever had wisdom teeth grow in, that dude likely took them out himself. Which. Doesn’t get mentioned in here. Because. Again. It’s supposed to be lighthearted. 
> 
> I’m gifting this to ellaphunt19 and JjDoggieS because they both gave me ideas for some of the things that happened in this fic while I ranted about it on the discord. I love both of them so much, even though they sometimes take Sprinto’s side. I hope that they both enjoy this, and I hope all of you enjoy this. Also, shoutout to the song “This Year” by The Mountain Goats because I listened to it approximately eighty nine times while writing this. 
> 
> Five is physically 17 and mentally 62 in this, but they don’t do anything besides talk about their feelings. Still, if that bothers you, please skip the fic!

“Five,  _ please.  _ I will do anything-“

“It’s not happening,” Five snapped. “I’m not doing it.”

Vanya sighed loudly. “What do I have to do, Five? You need to, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.” 

Five sneered, “I’m  _ not _ above violence.”

Vanya rolled her eyes in response. 

When she didn’t speak for a few minutes, eyes on the road, Five spoke again, “I’m not doing it.”

She just nodded, switching lanes. 

“You are  _ not  _ going to win with the silent treatment.”

She kept silent. 

“Goddammit, Vanya, we’re old enough that the silent treatment is  _ not  _ going to work on me. We’re not six anymore.”

Vanya glared at a truck that nearly ran them over, honking loudly and avoiding meeting Five’s eyes, though he was likely making the standard, hilarious facial expression when she tried to pull the big guns (otherwise referred to as, the silent treatment) on him. Five made an impatient noise, crossing his arms over his chest in her peripheral vision. 

The thing about Five is- he can never give the silent treatment. Because that would mean shutting the fuck up for longer than eight seconds at a time. He would never beat her at this game. 

“Jesus Christ,” Five grumbled after  _ exactly _ eight seconds. “Fine, you win. I’ll get my fucking wisdom teeth taken out. While we’re at it, maybe I could go to  _ therapy  _ for my  _ ‘mental health’  _ or the  _ doctor  _ for my  _ ‘alarmingly high blood pressure.’”  _

“You’re saying this like these are not things you should absolutely be doing,” Vanya remarked. 

“I will  _ not  _ go to therapy. I’m only getting my wisdom teeth out because they could be used against me.”

“Well, good thing about the wisdom teeth  _ becauseeeee,”  _ Vanya parked the car after drawing out the word unnecessarily long. “We are here.” 

_ “What?”  _ Five stared at the parking lot of the dentist’s office accusingly. “You said we were going to get something to eat.” 

“I  _ technically _ said, ‘Five, I want to go out.’ You interpreted that as a restaurant, but what I  _ meant _ was ‘I want you to go to the dentist,’” Vanya glanced up at the giant toothbrush statue warily. “It’ll only take a couple hours. Plus, you absolutely cannot run. I had Allison rumor you and then forget you’re under the rumor. Meaning, you can’t even try to run.” 

“How did you even get an appointment without my consent?” Five barked, pulling off the seatbelt sullenly. When he was throwing a tantrum, he very much looked like a teenager and not sixty-something years old. 

“I told them you’re my kid, and, since you’re a minor, or at least you look like one, I can make appointments for you. I said it was an emergency, told them you have been running fever the past few days from infection, _ which you have,”  _ Vanya shut off the car. “And I told them to be super liberal about drugging you because you had a serious illness that makes you think you’re sixty and also makes you bite anybody that maligns you.” 

Five was  _ seething,  _ face going from pink to red to deep purple. “You told them that you are my  _ mother?”  _ Five bit out, looking very much like he was about to try to throttle her (Allison had also rumored him to not hurt her, so he couldn’t.) “is there anything else I should know,  _ Mother?”  _

“I feel like I’d be a  _ Mom,  _ honestly,” Vanya mused. 

“I don’t fucking  _ care.  _ This is a complete violation of my personal space, and I  _ will  _ tell them you’re an abusive kidnapper and get thrown in foster care before I  _ ever  _ call you  _ ‘Mother.’”  _ He looked like he might start frothing at the mouth, and she considered asking the dentist if there were any oral methods of checking for hydrophobia. 

“Technically,” Vanya said, poking the bear mainly because Five couldn’t start attacking her by Allison’s control on him. “You  _ just  _ called me ‘Mother.’ Scathingly, yes, but you absolutely did it in the pissy comment prior to my ‘Mom’ comment.”

Five crossed his arms over his chest.

“We have  _ just  _ established you can’t pull off the silent treatment, Five.” 

He huffed, snapping, “I will do this, but I won’t  _ like  _ it.” 

“Noted.” Remembering something, Vanya added, “Also, your name is Quentin, your birthday is October 1st, 2006, and you  _ really  _ hate going to the dentist and haven’t been in a while because you refused, but I  _ do  _ make you brush and floss.” 

Five’s lips curled into a snarl.  _ “Quentin?” _

“The prefix of the-“

“I _ got  _ it, I’m not a  _ moron.”  _

“I would argue that refusing to go to the doctor for blood pressure problems is decidedly moronic behavior.” They still had not left the car, and Vanya was well-aware he was trying to stall. “Honestly, Five, you were an assassin. You’d think you would know how high blood pressure could lead to heart attacks and strokes.” 

“Oh, you’re absolutely right, Vanya! How could I forget all the deaths I’ve caused through feeding victims a high-sodium diet?” Five quipped scathingly. “The London job was my most legendary work, actually! All it took was convincing a man to  _ not _ use Kikkoman’s ‘less sodium’ soy sauce on his fried rice and just live a little!” 

Vanya frowned at him, “Get out of the car. We don’t have all day.”

“Oh, are the award-winning dentists at,” he glanced up at the sign with contempt and condescension. “‘Crack a Smile’,  _ Jesus fucking Christ _ , on a tight schedule, Vanya?” 

“Yes, Five,” Vanya said, knowing her skin was starting to glow. “They  _ are.  _ Now walk your happy ass inside or I  _ will _ cause another doomsday in this strip mall parking lot.” 

Once Five refused to go inside, Vanya wolf-whistled. Quickly, Luther walked over from where he had been lurking in the corner. Five hissed at him, unable to run away or fight him as Luther scooped him up into his arms. 

“We’re doing this for your own good,” Vanya told him quietly, afraid of anybody listening into their conversation.

Once they had reached the entrance, Luther set him down. Vanya grabbed Five’s hand, silently dragging him along and trying to look like the mother of a disgruntled teen that was nervous for a surgery. Five clutched her hand, squeezing it tenderly but Vanya was well-aware that he meant to be crushing her hand and couldn’t with the rumor. Nevertheless, Vanya squeezed it back, confused when she could hear Five’s heart as it started speeding up. 

“They do this surgery all the time,” Vanya told him quietly. “You don’t gotta be nervous.”

“I’m  _ not  _ nervous.” 

Vanya rubbed her thumb against his palm, listening to his stuttering heartbeat and knowing he was lying. She understood, really. It made  _ sense.  _ Vanya had been wary of hospitals and clinics too for years because of Reginald. He’d drilled it into their heads that they shouldn’t want medical professionals for medical problems. She could recognize now that it was another way to control them and keep his abuse kept under wraps. If the others had gone to a doctor when they had been injured on a mission, the doctor would have called child protective services. 

“I wouldn’t do anything that would get you hurt,” Vanya added. “You  _ need  _ to get this done, or you could get really sick.” 

Five opened his mouth to speak, but then the cheery receptionist called out, “You must be Mrs. Hargreeves!”

_ “Mrs.?”  _ Five asked under his breath, quiet enough that only she would hear with her power. When Five had realized she had hearing as a capability, he had started doing that frequently. Oftentimes, it was to say something shitty about the others when they were talking to see if she would burst out laughing in the middle of a serious conversation. It had become something of a game by that point. At that moment, however, Five was doing it to be a bitch. 

Vanya hoped the expression she shot him conveyed,  _ ‘stop being a bitch’  _ before she turned to the receptionist. “Yes! I’m Vanya!”

“I’ve just talked with your husband, Luther,” the lady said, pulling out a clipboard. “But I was wondering if you could fill out a few things for Quentin here. Deborah will be out shortly to grab him.”

“Luther is her  _ brother,”  _ Five told the woman venomously. The receptionist made an embarrassed noise, and Vanya hoped for the woman’s sake that she switched jobs before Five’s rumoring and drugs wore off, lest he murder the woman. Vanya was honestly surprised Five would be so offended by the concept, though. He had never indicated Allison and Luther’s relationship to be something that offended him in the past, so Vanya had honestly assumed he didn’t view any of them as siblings in the traditional context. 

“It’s okay,” Vanya told the receptionist, accepting the clipboard from her grasp. “He’s just nervous and lashing out.”

The woman nodded sagely, smiling brightly at Five. “Well, if it helps anything, I will say we give stickers to every patient at the end for their bravery!”

Vanya was 97% certain that if Five had been able to cause physical damage to another human being at that moment, he would have leapt over the counter and attacked. As it was, Five simply told her, “I would rather have each of my nails ripped out of my skin and fed to me.”

“We should have had Allison rumor him to not be able to emotionally torment people too,” Vanya mumbled as they all sat down in the waiting room. 

Five started grumbling under his breath about the posters, ensuring only Vanya would be the only one to hear his snide remarks. 

“ _ ‘Smile! It’s Tooths-day!’”  _ Five muttered. “I imagine if space and time was broken by some hellish dental dimension that used puns to name their days, people’s first reaction wouldn’t be to  _ smile.”  _

Despite herself, Vanya giggled at his remark as she tried to remember Five’s allergies for the form. Encouraged by her laughter apparently, he continued,  _ “‘Plaque is wack. Floss is boss.’  _ Correct me if I’m wrong, but did calling things ‘boss’ come into fashion after I left? And, if so, what does it even mean? It’s grammatically incorrect, and I hate it.” 

“You hate everything,” Vanya noted to him, tilting over to ensure he heard it since she spoke in a softer tone. Her hair spilled against his rib cage, and something about the closeness made her want to lean her head on his shoulder. If they had been in his room at twelve years old, she would have without a second thought. As it was, they were in a waiting room, and Five was incongruous to her in many ways now. She  _ knew  _ he was in his sixties by this point, but she also knew that it wouldn’t look that way to the people in that room. 

“I don’t hate _ you,”  _ Five countered in response to her statement. 

Vanya shrugged, “If I keep making you go to the doctor, maybe.”

Five sighed, “I  _ do  _ appreciate that you care, V. It’s not that I dislike  _ that.  _ I just don’t like… medical facilities.”

She knew how he felt.

When Vanya had first left the mansion, the concept of going to the doctor had scared her so much that it had taken passing out in public from appendicitis for her to go. Vanya had been out of it until the subsequent appendectomy’s drugs had worn off. 

“It can be hard for me too,” Vanya murmured. “Seeing signs like that one over there with the  _ ‘Smile! Dentists have fillings too!’ _ reminds me how differently we were raised from other kids. Or like when somebody asks me about Luther and Allison-“

“Vanya, it’s not just that, it’s-“ Five, after cutting off Vanya, was cut off by the dental hygienist saying they were ready for him. He opened his mouth like he was still considering finishing his sentiment before eventually stalking off to the woman. 

“Vanya, would you like to come back as well?” 

Vanya looked at Five, trying to decipher what he wanted. His face was carefully blank, so she shook her head, realizing she had made a mistake when she heard the jump of fear in Five’s heart. By that point, though, the hygienist had closed the door behind them. 

Still, she listened in on the conversation with Five and the hygienist. 

“Could you confirm your birthdate and name for me real quick?” 

“Quentin Hargreeves. October 1st, 2006.”

“How interesting! I guess it’s a sort of nod to the fifth member of the Umbrella Academy then?” Vanya could hear Five settling down on the dentist’s chair.

“Yes, I’m his child.”

The hygienist made a distressed noise. “So, your mother adopted-“

“No.”

Vanya felt her face burn. She was well-aware Five was only insinuating that she had an illicit affair with her brother (or… him, she supposed) because he was incapable of physically harming the woman and was trying to cause her so much mental distress that she would tell the dentist to call off the surgery. However, the concept of Five being the father of her child inexplicably made her want to start sobbing. 

“Uh,” the woman said. “Would you like a blanket? It can get cold for some patients. Plus, you’ll be asleep, so.”

There was a noise like Five snatching the blanket from her hands. The woman made a worried noise. Of course, then the dentist walked in, keeping Five from getting his wish of them realizing he’d be too difficult. 

“Hello, Quentin!” The woman’s voice held a distinctive Texan drawl, making her sound impossibly more cheery. Vanya hoped for her sake that she really tried to tone down that optimism before Five finds a way to use her drill against her. “We’re fixin’ to get you nice and anesthetized. Are you nervous at all?”

“I’m  _ fixin’  _ to be nervous,” Vanya could imagine what his scowl looked like. “What are you, 12?”

“Oh, your momma told me ‘bout your condition,” the dentist commented indulgently. “I guess I should call you  _ ‘sir’  _ since you’re sixty and therefore 25 years older than me, huh?”

“I  _ am  _ sixty and 25 years older than you. And you  _ should  _ call me ‘sir.’” His reedy voice certainly gave him no favors in selling his age. 

“Isn’t he a hoot, Deborah?” 

Vanya turned her gaze forlornly to the  _ ‘The tooth. The whole tooth. And nothing but the tooth.’  _ poster of an anthropomorphized tooth holding a gavel and wearing a powdered wig. Five was going to kill everyone who worked here once he sobered up from his Vicodin prescription. 

Five, albeit a little cooly, changed paths, saying, “I’m allergic to penicillin, will that be a problem at all?”

“Your momma already told me that, don’t worry,” the dentist said. 

Five laid back against the dentist’s chair as the hygienist appeared to wrap the paper cloth around his neck, based on the slight scratching and rustling noise as she clipped the metal to the paper. 

“Alright, Quentin, we’re just gonna prick the back of your hand and you’ll feel a slight sting and then you’ll start to get sleepy, okay?” 

Five’s heart started pounding wildly. She could tell both by the monitor he was hooked to and hearing it with her own ears. 

“Scared of needles?” The dentist’s voice was sympathetic, but Five would take it as pitying. 

“I’m  _ not,”  _ he insisted, and she heard him inhale roughly. “Just do it.” 

A scant amount of time after the needle had pierced his skin, Five’s heartbeat started to slow. She was honestly surprised how quickly it took effect. 

“In the Commission,” his voice held a dreamy quality. “They would inj… inj… they would poke needles when bad.” 

Vanya’s body tensed. Beside her, Luther asked, “What’s wrong?”

Even though Five was clearly under the influence, the implications of his words… 

“Does he ever talk about his time in the Commission?” Vanya found herself asking Luther, who had moved to sit beside her at her sign of distress.

Luther shrugged, “Not really, no. He’s always been evasive though.”

“Yeah,” Vanya said, staring at the  _ ‘Brace Yourselves’  _ poster. It was another cartoon tooth, this time with brackets over its face and holding a sword and a fur coat, looking resolutely downwards. “It’s just… I wish he would talk to us more. It had to have been hard on him, and I… I don’t think he’s going to listen to me about going to therapy, either.”

Luther sighed, slinging an arm around her shoulder. He’d started to become more brotherly gradually, over a pretty significant stretch of time. “You know, if he doesn’t want to go to therapy, he shouldn’t. It’s never successful until somebody  _ wants  _ to be there anyways. Five clearly doesn’t, and he’s going to have to get to that point himself. We definitely do need to take him to get blood pressure medicine though. Did you know Mom said he had record breaking levels after solving the apocalypses?”

Vanya leaned her head against Luther’s shoulder, trying to distract herself with anything else, saying the first words that came to mind. “The receptionist doesn’t know we were in the Umbrella Academy, you know. She assumed we were married. Anyways, I guess the receptionist did know, and she just asked Five about it a little bit ago. You know what he said? That he’s the child of Number Five. So the dental hygienist has been muttering under her breath to the dentist about how  _ another _ affluent sibling couple’s child is in the office and that maybe they should go back to the health department because rich people have the same problem as poor people too and the benefits there are better.” 

Luther frowned. “Five said he had a child with  _ you?” _

“Well, technically,  _ Quentin  _ said his father was Five and his mother was me… so, okay, yeah, I guess he did.”

“Huh.” Luther seemed to have realized something, which Vanya couldn’t possibly decipher. “Hey, you and Five were best friends as kids, right?”

“Yeah?”

Luther nodded. “Interesting.”

Vanya frowned sharply at him. “What? Five couldn’t be friends with the ordinary one?”

“I don’t think he thought you were ordinary,” Luther remarked with a significant tone like he was hinting at something before he tried winking and failing as both eyes closed shut.

Vanya had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. 

“Exactly,” Vanya said. “I know exactly what you are talking about.” She failed at winking too. Hopefully, Luther wouldn’t realize she was very much clueless in this concern. If anything, her words just made him look confused, like he was attempting to use only his mind to solve an unsolvable equation.

They stayed in relative silence afterwards. She could hear Five snoring softly, meaning that the anesthesia had worked on him. She wondered if it was a violation of his privacy to ask him to tell her about the Commission while he was still under the influence in the next week, deciding ultimately that it would be. 

Time stretched for a seemingly impossible time, with only issues of  _ Highlights, Better Homes & Gardens, People, Time, Vogue, National Geographic,  _ and  _ Sports Illustrated _ to keep her distracted. Vanya found any of the puzzles in magazines she could find, working on crosswords until the dental hygienist rolled Five out on a wheelchair, the dentist following behind her. 

“Miss Hargreeves!” The dentist called. Vanya quickly sauntered up, taking note of Five’s puffy face and the bloodied cotton spilling from his mouth. “Quentin here did amazing with his surgery today.” 

“I better get my sticker,” Five said after spitting out the cotton (apparently mixed in with gauze that Vanya hadn’t seen before) onto the waiting room floor. His voice still sounded warbled without his mouth full. “I  _ earned  _ that sticker.”

“We’ll give you five,” the hygienist told him, squeezing his shoulder. 

“Hell yeah you will,” Five grumbled, somehow managing to sound condescending and superior over getting stickers. “And they  _ better  _ be scratch and sniff.”

“He’s still a little loopy, huh?” Vanya asked, very much rhetorically. 

“Yeah, he will be for sure for the next day, but we assume he’ll probably be a little loopy until his pain meds stop. I will have the receptionist give you a prescription paper and this one’s stickers, okay?”

Five groaned loudly as the hygienist ran off to grab more of the gauze and cotton ball mixture and placed it in his mouth once she came back, not struggling with that as his mouth had been flopped out (probably completely without his knowledge as he seemed to be unable to feel his jaw.) 

They walked over to the receptionist, Five attempting to stand next to Vanya but really just gripping her shoulder while she held him up. “Bet I could blink over to behind the desk and get even more stickers.”

“Don-“

Five fell flat on his face, muttering to the ground, “Nailed it.”

Vanya started crying in frustration, lifting him up by his elbow. He leaned against her, saying that she’s much softer than Delores, which made her grimace, hoping he shuts up before he started discussing life with a mannequin in an apocalypse for all of the dentist’s waiting room to hear. 

“Five, don’t talk about that here,” she muttered, for good measure. 

“Vanya, I’m supposed to tell the tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth. That judge over there says so,” he pointed to one of the posters, grinning like he was proud of his capability to read. 

“If they hear about Delores, they’ll take you away.”

Five snorted, “I have  _ powers,  _ Vanya. Mom-ya. Is that what you want to be called? Mom-ya?”

“Christ, Five, quiet down, people are looking.”

“You’re not my mother,” he hissed, but he at least made an effort to be a little more quiet. “And it was wrong of you to say that you were, and you know that.”

Vanya didn’t respond, watching in dismay as the dark look on his face shifted to glee when he got the stickers. He smacked one that said, ‘you’re grape’ on her cheek while Vanya took the prescription. While Five tried licking the one that said ‘peary good job,’ she and Luther walked him to the car, each holding onto either side of him because he was wobbling. As they were climbing inside, Five waved solemnly to the giant toothbrush statue. 

Luther decided to drive for them, and she stayed in the back with Five, who insisted on holding her hand the entire way home. He fell asleep on her shoulder, waking up only once to announce that he would die if he didn’t get mashed potatoes once Luther had come outside of the pharmacy with his prescription. Vanya frowned at him, asking Luther to pull over and get him mashed potatoes at a drive through when he got inside the car.

He was snoring on her shoulder by the time Luther’s gotten his food, and Vanya tried to disentangle from him to grab it, making him reach forward and pull her against his chest in his sleep. It felt a little like when they were younger, and she would sleep in his bed beside him after she had nightmares. It filled her with a sense of tenderness, and she held onto the fast food bag but didn’t try to move again until they were home. 

Once at the mansion, Vanya gently shook him, murmuring softly to him to wake up. He did, not noticing the fact that he had slobbered on her flannels (which, to be fair, she hadn’t noticed either until just then) and moving away from her. “What’s wrong?” Five asked, looking both willing to fight and like he’d completely lose said fight.

“We’re home,” she told him.

Confusingly, he blushed, “That’s nice. I always wanted that for us, you know.”

Vanya knit her eyebrows together, starting to ask him for clarification when Luther opened the door on them, reaching out to carry Five, who bat at Luther’s hands weakly with his non-dominant hand. 

“You think you can walk by yourself?” Vanya asked him, realizing she was still holding his other hand and moving to unlace their fingers, but he tightened his grip like he was panicked at the thought. Trying to assuage his nervous behavior, she quickly added, “I can hold onto your hand if it helps you!”

Five sneered, dropping her hand, boldly crawling over her to prove how coordinated he was. If Luther had not been there to catch him, he likely would have broken his already-injured jaw. Luckily, Luther simply plucked him up before he fell, cradling him like he was a baby and not a seventeen-slash-sixty-two-year-old. 

“Make him stop,” Five yelled, swiping at Luther, who easily ducked away from his still somewhat small hands. As he started trying to bite at him, clearly not under the influence of the rumor anymore, Vanya asked him gently to stop and, pouting at them both and glaring at the gargoyles they passed, he did. 

When they got inside, Luther gently settled him against the couch, opening up the carton of mashed potatoes and handing him a spork. Vanya started to walk to her room to practice, but Five reached out his hand to her feebly, asking her to stay. 

She shrugged, figuring she could work on scorestudy instead, concentrating her powers to the table where a Scheherazad score was resting, hovering it in the air before grabbing it up and sinking onto an armchair a few feet from Five. Reaching into her pocket for a pencil, she felt Five’s gaze on her, making her knit her eyebrows together and bite her lip. 

Five made a pained noise, and she finally glanced up at him. “You okay?”

“You’ve gotten so much better with your control,” he said softly, setting the potatoes down on the table and leaning back. His voice sounded tired as he added, “Proud of you.” 

“You wanna go to sleep?” Vanya asked, chewing against her pencil subconsciously. 

He shook his head. Though his eyes were shutting, he told her, “Not tired.”

“You look like you’re already half asleep,” Vanya pointed out. 

His lips quirked, “I’m resting my eyes.”

“That’s something an old man would say.”

“I mean, I’m 62, V.” 

“Well, specifically a grandpa.”

His grin grew, and she could see a flash of his canines as he argued, “Might be.”

Vanya snorted, “You sleep around in the Commission?” 

She was flicking through the pages of her notes, but Five’s voice was so urgent that she flicked her eyes to him again, “I didn’t know when I’d go home.” 

“I know,” Vanya told him soothingly. “I was just teasing you.”

“There were points I didn’t know if I’d even come home to…” He glanced away, ears tipping red, not finishing what he was saying. 

Vanya, not wanting him to feel uneasy, tried to keep her voice light as she asked, “Had someone waiting for you back here, huh?” 

He opened his mouth, making a small noise before grunting, “I should sleep, actually.”

“Okay, yeah, of course,” Vanya said, reaching forward to squeeze his shoulder before looping her pinkie with his own. “Go to sleep, I’ll stay here. Promise.” 

He smiled softly, only looking dismayed when she backed off from his touch to work on her score. Fortunately though, he fell asleep shortly after. 

She worked through her somewhat convoluted notes, having worked on this one when the apocalypse had been first averted. Five had been kind enough to gather a large pile of scores, giving her something to concentrate on when she needed to take a break from training. Many nights after training for hours, she’d fall asleep on his shoulder, and he wouldn’t move until she woke up in the middle of the night. He’d smile ruefully, ask her if she needed anything before she went back to sleep. If she said no, he’d blink her to the room she slept in, tucking her in after he’d squeeze her shoulder and say he was proud of all the work she’d put in the day prior. If someone were to ask Five if he was a selfish person, he’d likely say he was, but Vanya thought he was the most selfless person in the world, considering he’d done so  _ much  _ to keep her alive and safe. Even after she’d caused the apocalypse he suffered in, he still treated her with all the kindness he always had.

At one point, Vanya realized that she’d stopped working at one point, losing focus as she thought about her time spent with Five these past few years. Glancing up, she realized that the sun was starting to fall. Five was still breathing heavily, having slept for the longest span of time she’d seen since they were children. She wondered if he ever slept a full night in his time during the Commission. In the apocalypse, she imagined that, even if he had slept full nights, it wouldn’t have been very restful sleep anyways. Would it be wrong, then, to wake him?

As she had the thought, Five’s eyes opened, and he glanced up in confusion, clutching his jaw. She realized that he was in pain, and she searched for the bottle of pain pills, realizing he was well past due for another dose. “Do you want water to swallow your pill?” Vanya asked him.

“What happened? Where am I?”

Vanya frowned. “You got your wisdom teeth taken out. You’re at the mansion. Obviously.”

He scowled, tipping his head back again. “Oh, I forgot that you betrayed my trust.”

“You’re really melodramatic, has anyone ever told you that before?”

Five didn’t answer, choosing instead to stare melodramtically into the distance. 

Vanya forced down laughter, telling him that she would grab him some water. He made another pained noise as she started to leave, but she was pretty certain Five’s situation would be a perfect way to force him to be more hydrated. Though he probably wasn’t horrible about drinking water, Vanya was pretty certain all of Five’s life habits followed one simple theme- make everyone who loves him unbearably stressed for the rest of their goddamn lives. His blood pressure alone did that for Vanya, at the very least.

He was staring disdainfully at the potatoes beside him when she came back, crouching down beside him to tip water into his mouth, slipping a pill in easily as she did. Once he’d gulped down the entire cup, he commented, “You’re aware that I knew there was a pill in there, right?”

Vanya shrugged. “You won’t be in about, oh, twenty minutes or so.”

Five glared at her. “And here I thought we were friends.”

“Friends don’t let friends die of infections. You were already running fever when I made the appointment, you know.”

He sighed, loudly. Vanya reached for her score, about to actually make progress with it when Five asked, “Why didn’t you have somebody else pretend to be my parent? Why did it have to be you?” His voice lacked none of the loopiness or dreamy quality of before though she imagined it would get back there once the pill kicked in. 

Still, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell him then, seeing as it wasn’t that important of a topic. Honestly, she didn’t understand why Five was asking in the first place. “I mean, why not me? If we were going by who you look like most, it would probably have been Klaus, but, as I’m the only one who you’d have willingly gotten in a car with without much explanation prior, it made sense for it to be me.”

“Don’t you see why that would upset me?”

She didn’t see, but she didn’t answer either. The first reason that popped to mind made her want to twitch in discomfort; she didn’t think Five felt that way about her. It was stupid, that she’d even think of it at all- them, at thirteen years old, right before he left, sharing their first kiss. If she was to voice that memory just then, it would be entirely inappropriate. He’d be disgusted with her for even suggesting it, considering how upset he had gotten over the concept of her and Luther being a couple. Clearly, he thought of all of them as siblings. Vanya never really had, but she figured that maybe Five felt that way because he left before it got  _ really  _ bad, that he wasn’t excluded in the years before he had. It was hard to call the others her  _ siblings  _ because she had never been treated like she  _ was _ their family. It made sense, then, why Five would consider all of them siblings. 

Ten minutes later, when she hadn’t spoke, Five sighed, “We don’t have to talk about it. I know it’s different now. I get it, believe me.”

Vanya was still confused what he was even referring to, so she was almost grateful for not responding to him when she would undoubtedly only embarrass herself with what she’d been thinking about before. 

Another ten minutes passed, and Five sighed, clearly experiencing the pills kicking in, eyes already drooping again. She closed her eyes, forcing back confused tears. It was wrong to even think what she was thinking. Maybe,  _ maybe,  _ she and Five could be best friends again one day, but she didn’t think that their friendship could ever again be what it was, certainly not what it had been  _ approaching.  _

And, truly, she had only herself to blame for that. If she hadn’t caused the apocalypse, she never would have even be put in this position. Maybe she and Five could have approached  _ that,  _ or maybe they wouldn’t have. Either way, she had damned herself from ever knowing. 

Five was in a deep sleep by the time she left him, needing to go outside to breathe. He wouldn’t wake up anytime soon, and she needed to calm down. It was causing her too much stress to be in the same room as him, and too much stress was detrimental for her. And, well, possibly the entire universe. 

Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she stalked the streets, not afraid to walk alone at night any longer. Anybody that would even try to hurt her, she could kill instantly. She was the predator there, more than willing to kill anything that crossed her path. It was starting to rain, and she knew it was her doing, had put on a jacket primarily because she’d suspected it  _ would  _ happen. Five would have probably reprimanded her for not bringing an umbrella. He was a good friend to her- teleporting to her any time on cold days he noticed she didn’t bring a jacket, getting her chicken noodle soup from her favorite deli the next day when she would inevitably have a cold from her absentmindedness. 

These thoughts, regrettably, were not here for the first time around. She knew that he was 62, that he would not be upset by somebody her  _ age  _ being attracted to him (well, he might think someone her age was a little young for him, actually), but he also clearly thought of her like a sister. That’s where the guilt came in. 

Sure, Five had kissed her, once, over twenty years ago (and that was for  _ her,  _ for  _ him  _ it was nearing fifty years ago.) That didn’t mean anything, though. For one, he very clearly moved on, with literally the first  _ thing _ he found. Also, a small crush, if it was even that, wouldn’t have stuck around for five decades. That would be completely unfair (and presumptuous) of her to expect of him. Likely, even then, it had just been that he was curious how kissing worked and thought,  _ ‘My best friend isn’t going to judge me for it, and I don’t have to worry about messing up with her because  _ gross.’

Clearly, Five hadn’t even been thinking about the ramifications of what it meant to be  _ siblings  _ because he had never encountered life outside of the four walls of the mansion. If he had, he would have probably shared his first kiss with literally anyone else. Plus, it would have been easier for him to convince her in particular because she would have wanted to be included for anything back then, so she would have easily agreed to it. Kissing Allison, for example, wouldn’t have worked out because Allison could kiss literally anyone that she wanted to kiss, ever. 

God, she was starting to sound like a teenager. 

Maybe that’s what it was- that she never had a chance to be a melodramatic teenager. Perhaps some part of her craved the chance to be irrational and overly emotional and selfish. Which was stupid. The last time she’d been irrational, overly emotional, and selfish the world had ended. She didn’t ever get to be a stupid teenager, and maybe Reginald had been right to have not let her. After all, even if that man had been  _ awful-  _ cruel, abusive, manipulative, sadistic- he had not been stupid. At least, not in that regard. Because the second that she had defied what he had planned out for her, doomsday happened. 

The rain morphed into sleet, and she realized that she was probably more emotional than she thought. She wasn’t sure why she was even so upset. It was probably just how clearly upset Five was with her, feeling like she had taken advantage of his unfortunate circumstances to take him to the dentist. The problem was, though, was that she had felt she had no other choice. She couldn’t exactly have let his infection or fever get worse, and he wouldn’t have gone until he had physically passed out and they were forced to carry him to the emergency room. He didn’t take care of himself, and she couldn’t lose him  _ again.  _

That had been what she had said when he’d started to leave her apartment the night he’d told her doomsday was going to happen. How different would everything have been if she had just been more convincing in asking him to stay? How different would everything have been if she had just  _ trusted  _ him?

She wondered if he thought about that too sometimes- how different it all could have played out if just a few variables had been changed. It didn’t take his aptitude with numbers to do the math there. 

Five had told her- many, many, many times- that the apocalypse was not completely her fault. 

_ If it wasn’t,  _ she’d want to say.  _ Then why did you only try to kill  _ me  _ when you found out the cause? _

As much as Five tried to reassure her, she was the reason the world ended. No matter how much flowery language he tried to coat it in, she was better off dead. Five was practical enough, she knew, that, if she were the cause again, he would try to kill her again. 

She also knew, that, if she were the cause again, she wouldn’t fight back when he did.

The sleet turned into snow, and she closed her eyes in exasperation. Five kept insisting that she was getting better with her control, enough that he added that he was proud of her, but she clearly didn’t have the level of control that he claimed. It was again Five’s own kindness that had kept him from being entirely truthful about it all. She appreciated it, she really did, but it filled her with so much guilt that he even felt he had to. 

Her arms were starting to cover in goosebumps, and her chattering teeth informed her that her lips probably were starting to go a little blue as she’d expected. Ignoring it, she plowed through the accumulating snow. 

She thought back to her and Five’s once easy friendship. Shared commentary about the others over peanut-butter-and-marshmallow sandwiches. Recreation times half spent with her playing a piece she’d practiced the week prior and half spent with him telling her all of his theories and progress in training. Cold nights huddled under his covers while he assured her that her nightmares wouldn’t come true. 

Of course, him reassuring her of her nightmares never coming true hadn’t been precisely accurate, had it? Her worst nightmare during that time had been that he would leave her behind, and she’d have nobody else that cared about her when he did. 

Maybe it was the snowstorm that she had caused that had made the night not quite as dark. It was a comfort though. The world grew so quiet when snow was on the ground, muffling all of the noise. Sometimes, she welcomed noise. She would certainly always welcome it over the silence of the entrapment Reginald had forced her in as a little girl. 

Sometimes, though, she just wanted everything to be silent again, wanted to block out all of excess noise. Even if it was the source of her powers, there were points where she craved the quiet, ordinary life she lived before the world had gone to Hell (or, put literally, before it had ended.) Fantasizing a life that was ordinary, she knew, was ironic, but she couldn’t exactly control what she  _ wanted.  _

Besides, what did it matter, to fantasize about it, when she would never get it?

Perhaps the only reason that she had ever even  _ wanted  _ to be extraordinary was because she didn’t want to be  _ alone.  _

And the only way she could have never been alone would have taken superpowers. 

It was stupid, very stupid, that she sometimes wondered what her life would have looked like if she had had Allison’s powers instead. Allison’s powers would be  _ awful  _ to have. Anybody with powers of that nature would wonder if people  _ wanted  _ to be around them, or if they were  _ obligated  _ to do so. If Vanya had them, she would still likely doubt whether or not people cared for her anyways. Even if Allison had the power to have practically anything she wanted, she didn’t have the power to make impossibilities to become realities. And even if Allison had the power to make anything she wanted a reality, she still had to live with the guilt afterwards of knowing  _ why  _ she had gotten something to become that way. 

Vanya’s teeth were knocking together so roughly that her icisors accidentally bit down against her bottom lips, instantly drawing blood. She forced down the unsettled feeling that came with knowing she caused a  _ blizzard  _ to happen, deciding that if she was selfish enough to cause it, then she at least would have to experience the effects of it. Her jacket was not built to keep her warm for such extreme weather, but she staved down the anxiety, knowing that this was as close as she’d ever dare to destroy herself. To get Five’s mission done for him before he even decided to take it.

It was odd, comparing the Five who had been her best friend as a teenager to the man that was at her home. If Vanya hadn’t seen the pain in his eyes, heard the way that his voice wasn’t tainted quite with the same arrogance anymore, at least more mixed in with compassion for his family, she might have thought when he showed up at the funeral that he really  _ was  _ just thirteen when he came back to them. It was clear, though, that that was not the case. He had not expressed romantic interest at all since he’d come back, at least not in front of her, and especially not after he grew to accept Delores was a coping mechanism. Vanya was pretty certain that he always had been aware of what Delores was, that he’d only not addressed it because it hadn’t done him any harm not to. His time in the Commission had only been about getting home to his family, and she imagined he had been especially aware of Delores then, considering what he’d told her earlier that day about sleeping around during that time. He didn’t strike her as the type to be unfaithful, and, if he truly viewed her as a living person, she didn’t think he would have slept with anybody else.

Unbidden, her thoughts went back on track to what they had before when she and Five had been talking. The urgency of his tone for reasons she couldn’t fathom.  _ Where  _ her mind had gone...

She knew that if Five had stayed with her that she would have known what their friendship would have looked like after it had a  _ chance  _ to evolve into anything more. 

Considering how loyal of a friend Five was, she didn’t think that he would have ever shoved her aside if they didn’t work out in the sense of a hypothetical romance, but she also knew that, if he were with someone else, he would have done so inadvertently. Even in any of the short-lived relationships in the years following Five’s departure, Vanya’s relationships had struggled due to her friendship with Five. He wasn’t even present in the slightest, but she still couldn’t find herself ever truly connecting with anyone once she realized they were not like him. And even if they  _ were  _ like him, she’d end up thinking they weren’t  _ enough  _ like him. And even if they were entirely like him, she’d decide that Five would tell her,  _ ‘This person is an arrogant asshole, and you could do better.’  _ Trying to imagine how her relationships would have gone, either in her shoving Five off to the side or breaking up with all of her partners because he was more important to her than them, she could very well see what it would look like for his own hypothetical partners. The only thing was- she  _ knew  _ Five would choose the other person in that scenario. 

Because, why  _ wouldn’t  _ he?

She realized that she had tears running down her cheeks after her skin started to feel like it was carved out of glass, like it could shatter any instant. It was an uncomfortable feeling, brought on by the numbness in her face from the chill, and she suspected the cold she would have after this would probably last normal than any other she’d had before. However, she was trying to punish herself, and she couldn’t complain about any of the pain she got after from doing so.

Her shoulders were trembling, but she took solace in the quiet, in the eerily light night. With the sky that was mostly clear now, she could see the moon better than ever. Slowly but surely, her heartbeat went to something more normal, more steady. 

The one thing that had never failed to calm her in the time that came  _ after  _ was the moon itself. Seeing it intact in the sky, knowing that it was safe from any harm she had caused it in another timeline altogether, it was comforting in a way that took her breath away. As her eyes locked on the silver-y light it emanated, she could forget, for just a moment, about the way that Five would have never seen it when he looked up each night for about forty-five years. Instead, all she could think about was that, if she kept working on her control, if she kept working on her ability to calm herself without the aid of those damn pills, that moon would stay there until she took her final breath, until she closed her eyes for good. 

Maybe, maybe,  _ maybe  _ she was being too hard on herself. The moon was still there. Five had ensured its survival, and the least she could do for him was ensure her own in return. And even though Five had only chosen to keep her alive as a selfless act, he still had chosen  _ to _ keep her alive. That said a lot. He clearly didn’t completely despise her. Otherwise, she’d already be dead. 

Vanya could handle that. It was the most she truly deserved from him anyways after everything that had transpired, she knew. Once he inevitably came to the realization that she wouldn’t end the world again, he would likely be unable to bear seeing her any longer, that he would likely leave her behind again, but she would manage after that. She would because he had looked up at a sky without moonlight for decades, and he’d maintained his kindness to her in the years that followed saving the world, even if she took that light from him.

Her ballet flats soaked through and hardened as she trudged through the piled snow. Vanya could sense the perplexment from the people huddled by fireplaces, shut inside from the quiet, eerie, cold world outside, drenched in an ethereal lightness. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. She was home.

And, apparently, home was in a state of chaos. 

Diego and Klaus were scurrying around, trying to put out fires. Literal fires. Allison’s voice was trying to coax out rumors, but they were unable to do much at all as everything surrounding her was much louder than her voice could possibly go. Luther was trying to hold onto a semi-corporeal Ben, who was clutching at his stomach in apparent shock that the monsters would choose to threaten right at that moment. 

And then there was Five, wailing Vanya’s name at the top of his lungs. Undoubtedly, the only successful one of Allison’s rumors had been to get him to not leave the house.

Flummoxed, she asked, “Guys, what’s going on?”

Six heads snapped to her, and then she was being crowded. Luther tried to hand her a disturbingly large pile of blankets, Ben tried to use the eldritch to make hot cocoa with little success, Allison started rumoring her that she didn’t have hypothermia, Diego stole the coat off Klaus’s shoulders to sling around her arms, Klaus started to protest that nudity was actually the best way for one to get warm, and Five clutched her shoulders, though it was clear that it was sheer willpower alone keeping him awake. 

“Where were you?” Five snapped. His voice didn’t sound angry, really, just filled with so much concern that it had an edge. 

For some reason, it made her burst into tears. Five, still high off his mind, started reaching for a gun that Vanya was pretty sure hadn’t been in the foyer before and prompted so many questions that she couldn’t ask through her sobs. Luther was trying to coax the gun out of Five’s hands, saying that firearms weren’t allowed when Five was on Vicodin. Practically foaming at the mouth, Five gestured at Vanya and snapped, “I have to take care of whatever caused  _ this.” _

So. Maybe they cared for her after all.

* * *

Luther’s pile of blankets ended up being made into a massive pillowfort. Holding steaming mugs of hot cocoa, they all huddled together. Luther and Allison were cuddled off eight feet away from Ben, Diego, and Klaus, who were arguing over a game of monopoly that Allison, Vanya, and Luther had all purposefully gone bankrupt in to get out early (Five was still not allowed to play Monopoly after an incident that none of them were allowed to speak of.) Ben screamed something about  _ ‘fucking railroads, I  _ hate  _ capitalism’  _ while Klaus gathered fake-money into the horrendous, unorganized arrangement of papers at his lap. 

Five, tucked to Vanya’s side, commented, “I’m really glad that all of you are safe. And that 83% of you guys are alive.”

She chuckled, trying not to jostle him too much with the sound. He’d tried to lay his head on her lap, but she’d worried that it would hurt his jaw and nixed the idea. “Eighty-three percent?” Vanya questioned.

“There are six of you,” he yawned. “And five of you are alive. Five divided by six is eighty-three-point-three-three-three-three-“

“I got the point,” Vanya interrupted, knowing that if she didn’t, he would not stop until his throat grew sore. 

He smiled, much wider than he would have if he wasn’t under the influence of drugs. “I love you, Vanya,” he said. There wasn’t any slurring to his words at all, but she still could easily imagine that it was just the Vicodin making him say it.

“Love you too,” she replied easily, combing through his dark hair with his fingers because he claimed it made his pain better. She didn’t argue, knowing that he was only saying that to make her feel better about him being in pain in the first place, giving her an unnecessary task to keep her mind off of it. When he experienced any drawbacks from his physical age, she often would feel a lot of guilt. Considering he wouldn’t have had to get his wisdom teeth out today if it hadn’t been for her, it had been awful today. 

“You don’t understand, I don’t think,” Five told her abruptly. “I’m in love with you.”

“Yeah, sure, Five, I’m in love with you too.” Vanya didn’t think much about saying those words, knowing Five was drugged enough that he couldn’t even teleport and that he didn’t mean them. When he got drunk, sometimes, he could still teleport, albeit never coordinated. Of course, even then, he’d sometimes say things like that to her, and she had gotten the idea at one point that he was just an overly friendly drunk.

“I can’t wait until I find a way to get an older body,” Five announced, quiet enough that the other occupants of the pillowfort couldn’t hear. “And we can be together. Really together. And not whatever weird purgatory this is.”

She opened her mouth, in confusion. 

“You don’t mean-“

“I want at least  _ one  _ dog,” Five continued, clearly not hearing her interrupt him. “You might can sell me on a cat. Or a kid. But that would take more convincing for sure.”

There were multiple points that she tried to interrupt him, telling him that she didn’t think he meant his words. When she did though, he just got more insistent, going into more candid (and loud) detail about his feelings and making Vanya hope that the others were not listening in on what he was telling her. 

“Hey, maybe you should try to sleep,” Vanya told him at one point. Ben, Diego, and Klaus had left, leaving the upturned Monopoly board behind. Allison and Luther’s eyes kept closing sleepily, and she was pretty sure that they were going to go to bed soon. She didn’t think she’d be able to, herself, with how stressed she had gotten today. On more stressful days, she would toss and turn for hours, trying to rest to no avail. Maybe she’d work on scorestudy again, waking up Five in the night whenever he needed to take his antibiotics or any other pills. It would be cozy in there at least, and Five wouldn’t be alone while he slept. 

“No,” Five grumbled, pausing in his ongoing rant to answer her. “You don’t believe that I love you, and I still have much more to say.” 

“Can I ask you something at least?” Vanya asked. Allison and Luther stood up, mumbling that they were going to bed and getting out of the fort. 

“Ask me anything.” She realized he was shivering, and she wrapped blankets around him, feeling guilty for the temperature outside. 

“Can you start…” She wasn’t sure if she was crossing a line here, having already vowed not to ask him about his Commission days while he was still under the influence of his pain meds. “Can you start going to the doctor? I’m not saying a therapist, not yet at least, but I think you should at the very least start taking better care of your physical health.”

He pursed his lips for a very long time before finally asking, “Would that make you happy? If I did?”

It was odd, how that question did more to reassure him than anything else that what he was saying could possibly be genuine at all. Then again, Five  _ hated  _ anything involving doctors, truly had hated even the care Grace gave him when they were younger. For that reason, if injuries after missions were minor enough, Vanya had been expected to help him with them. He never flinched away from her touch, and the concept that he would  _ willingly  _ see a doctor, for her sake, meant something above any of the other words he’d said before, though they’d been kind. 

Adding that to the fact that part of his fear of hospitals came from his time in the Commission, Vanya thought that maybe his feelings  _ hadn’t  _ changed in nearly fifty years. 

“It really would make me happy,” Vanya told him, feeling her heart begin to pound. She realized it was similar to the way his heart had pounded when she’d taken his hand at the dentist’s office earlier, and, suddenly, her mind started to fill itself with images of all the times Five had treated her differently from everyone else in their family. She then thought of the conversation with Luther earlier and then the one with Five and the dental hygienist and then of the one with Five and herself while he was on the couch and then of the teasing she and Five sometimes got from Klaus, Diego, and Ben. Everything was starting to click in place, painting a very clear picture. ‘ _ Oh’,  _ she thought, blinking away the tears from the sudden influx of emotions.  _ ‘I get it now.’  _ Vanya added, knowing that her face was turning scarlet, “You would make me so happy if you took care of yourself.”

His eyes watched over her, trying to assess what she was thinking but likely not finding the answer. Finally, he told her, “I’ll do it, then. On the stipulation that you understand that it’s  _ only  _ because it makes you happy. 

Vanya nodded, feeling a startled laugh bubble from her lips. She wasn’t sure if she felt euphoria or shock or anxiety or frustration, knowing what she knew and knowing she’d have to wait a while before she could act on that knowledge. “Thank you.”

“Who is Taylor Swift?”

_ “What?” _

“Diego kept mentioning Taylor Swift earlier, and I have no idea who she is. It is making me distressed. Was she president?”

“No, she absolutely wasn’t,” Vanya said, confused at the change of topic but honestly okay with it. The other was a conversation for another week, one where Five could speak to her without the influence of anything other than his own feelings. That she could speak to him of her own, and he’d remember. “She’s a popular singer.”

Five nodded, eyes glazing over. “You can go to sleep you know,” Vanya told him. 

“I don’t want to,” Five said. “I want to keep talking.”

Vanya raised her brows, in stifled amusement and fond exasperation. “What if I ask if it’s for me?”

“Are you gonna start using the ‘for you’ excuse?” 

“If everything goes according to your plans, probably for the rest of our lives.” 

He looked stunned for a few seconds before he told her, “I’ll be glad to hear it, then.” 

Maybe it made her a bad person, to ask him to continue what he had been rambling on about before, but she also had the sinking suspicion that he would have told her all of that completely sober. Had she asked him to, at the very least. “You’re welcome to talk about your plans, you know. Until you fall asleep, at the very least,” Vanya offered shyly. 

As he ranted away about the life he wanted for them, smiling at her request, Vanya knew she would have to ask him, very seriously, if he meant any of the words he said this night. When he was sober, she could make sure that this wasn’t just the influence of Vicodin making him say these things, but, for now, she’d take the hope the words brought her, even if he would immediately shoot it down.

And maybe it was the cheerfulness of the voices chattering away upstairs. Or maybe it was the way Five sounded so insistent of his plans. Or maybe it was the moonlight that had managed to breach through the pillowfort, comforting them both in its ethereal glow, but Vanya  _ did  _ feel hope. 

Maybe instead of living in memories long past, she could make new ones instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I have really enjoyed writing this (mildly long) one-shot! The rest of the week will be multi-chaps, so this was a nice reprieve for me honestly. I was struggling with writing a lot recently, and I have kind of contented myself just from the productivity I’ve managed. I’m hoping you guys enjoy the rest of the week (and hopefully you liked this fic too!)


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